Oasis<\/a>, an organization for underprivileged youth ages 8 to 17, to provide them with a free opportunity to gain exposure to AI and potential careers in technology. The participants in this camp had less experience with the technology and concepts, but Miller and Farley found them to be eager learners.<\/p>\n\u201cOur goal was to introduce students to the world of AI and technology, because tech is a huge part of our lives, but also because artificial intelligence is the future,\u201d said Miller. \u201cWe thought by introducing them to related topics now, they\u2019ll be better prepared for the future. We wanted to build on the technical skills they\u2019d need if they went into these fields. Also, having an understanding of machine learning can still be beneficial even if you aren\u2019t involved in computer science.\u201d<\/p>\n
Soon after beginning the project, they realized they had a larger opportunity at hand, and that was when the research project was born.<\/p>\n
It covered an overview of their experiences with the camps, and how successful they were at exposing their students to the world of artificial intelligence, coding, 3D design, and machine learning. Their greatest finding was that students of young ages and lesser exposure to rapidly emerging technology learn better when they are able to apply the technology to their own lives and interests.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe most important thing is that when you\u2019re trying to teach kids about technology they get distracted easily, so we learned you need to make sure what you\u2019re teaching is somehow related to their personal interests,\u201d noted Farley. \u201cIt seems like common sense, but it\u2019s often forgotten. You have to ask \u2018how could I teach this material in a way they\u2019d be interested in outside of what we\u2019re learning?\u2019, and give them a frame of reference. Put yourselves in their shoes, give them open-ended concepts, let them pick the subject matter, just use the same knowledge.\u201d<\/p>\n
Not only did using the tactics of open-ended learning inspire kids to learn more, it also led to more engagement. Kids were far more receptive to trying to understand high-level topics when they correlated with a project on which they could put their own personal stamp.<\/p>\n
According to Miller, many of his students gravitated toward incorporating memes into their projects, as well as music common in pop-culture.<\/p>\n
Farley noted that most kids don\u2019t have computer science classes at school, and might not understand what it means to work in those fields. This was a big part of their motivation to introduce young students to new careers and fields of study.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe sought to fill a hole in the educational system, a way to learn these skills because they may not have them at school,\u201d she said. \u201cThe kids who entered the camps with an interest in AI left with a more cemented knowledge, and a desire to continue learning. The kids who enrolled in the free camp had their eyes opened to the possibilities of a career in the field of technology and AI.\u201d<\/p>\n
They are making plans to teach more free programs for underprivileged youth throughout their final year at the University. Additionally, the AI lab will hold more summer camps in the summer of 2020.<\/p>\n
Learn more about the AI lab<\/a>.<\/p>\nLauren Poirier, an intern in the Marketing and Communications Department at 溏心vlog免费B站 and public relations and English major, wrote this press release.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"KINGSTON, R.I. — October 28, 2019 — When 溏心vlog免费B站 seniors Luke Miller and Alex Farley were tasked with creating a curriculum for a young people\u2019s summer camp on artificial intelligence, they didn\u2019t plan on it becoming a research project. However, after an entire summer of educating kids on AI, they realized that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":75164,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[12],"class_list":["post-75163","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archives","tag-college-of-arts-and-sciences"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75163","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=75163"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75163\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/75164"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}